Misty Franklin relaxes in her room at the Norwood Care Centre with her mother Barb Martin on Monday, January 27, 2014.

Photograph by: Greg Southam
, Edmonton Journal

EDMONTON - For the last day of her life, Misty Joy Franklin dressed in bold, crimson red.

It was one of her favourite shirts, and she knew the colour was particularly striking next to her skin. After spending most of the last 10 years indoors, her skin was so pale it was nearly translucent.

Misty was dressed and sitting in her wheelchair when her older sister, Cheryl, entered her room at CapitalCare Norwood on Tuesday morning.

Misty became a quadriplegic on Dec. 18, 2003, when she was stabbed in the neck by a man she had been dating. She’d just turned 24 that fall, and she had two young daughters.

The stab wound severed her spinal cord, and she nearly died. She awoke from a coma to learn she was paralyzed from the shoulders down.

Her attacker, Trevor Fontaine, had a long history of violence against women, including a stabbing that nearly killed a woman in Winnipeg.

Fontaine, 32, had been on parole when he met Misty, who was staying at a women’s shelter across the street from the halfway house where he was living in Prince George.

Fontaine was later declared a dangerous offender for the attack and imprisoned indefinitely. An appeal of the dangerous offender designation was denied by the B.C. Court of Appeal earlier this month.

Doctors told Misty’s mother it would be lucky if she survived 10 years with her injuries. Through the years that followed, Misty fought illness and infection, and nearly died at least once, after a serious reaction to medication put her in a coma. But she survived. And, after 10 years, it was Misty herself who decided that she would die.

Being removed from life-sustaining ventilation has been legal in Canada since 1992, when a paralyzed Quebec woman who was on a ventilator fought the matter in court.

Since that decision, being removed from ventilation is akin to declining surgery or refusing other life-sustaining medical treatment, such as dialysis, antibiotics or chemotherapy. To be removed from ventilation, patients must only be older than 18 and have the mental capacity to understand the repercussions of their choice.

Misty began thinking about turning off her ventilator early in 2013, and soon began asking staff at the care home to help her arrange it. She told her family of her plan in the summer, and started making arrangements for her death, including buying a tombstone and a bench to hold her ashes.

She picked Oct. 30 as the day she wanted to die, but as it approached, she changed her mind. She said she wasn’t ready, that there were things she still wanted to do.

Early in the new year, another date was set: Tuesday, Jan. 28. This time, Misty said, she would not change her mind.

“I’m just so tired,” she said. “I’m ready.”

As Jan. 28 approached, Misty’s family and friends gathered at her room at Norwood to say their goodbyes, travelling from around the province.

Misty divvied up her clothes and possessions. As family arrived, she told them which things she had set aside for them, and asked all her visitors to take an angel from the collection in her glass display case in her room.

She told the people who came to see her not to cry.

“Just think of me, not in this room, but somewhere, running with my horses,” she said.

If someone left the room crying, Misty sent her mother or someone else after them to give them a hug and make sure they were OK.

“You are having lots and lots of visitors,” a nurse said on Monday.

“It’s coming time, that’s why,” Misty said, her eyes full with tears. “I don’t like to think about it.”

On Tuesday morning, Misty’s family and closest friends walked with her as she was wheeled through the tunnels from Norwood to the Royal Alexandra Hospital.

She stopped several times along the way, saying goodbye to Norwood staff members and other residents, telling many of them, “I love you.”

Misty’s mother, Barb Martin, said her daughter kept everyone around her strong.

“She was way stronger than we were. She was just amazing,” Barb said. “It’s like she’s giving us strength in this. She’s so positive.”

When Misty saw her sister starting to panic, she told her, “Breathe, sister,” and held her gaze until Cheryl relaxed.

“She just kept saying, ‘I’m tired. Please understand,’ ” Cheryl said.

Cheryl told her: “We do, Misty. We all understand.”

The group spent hours at the hospital, talking, sharing stories and memories. Misty ate some of her mother’s poutine, claiming the fry with the most cheese on it for herself. They sang Wind Beneath My Wings and You Are My Sunshine, which Misty’s mother used to sing to her when she was a child.

It was evening when it began.

First with sedatives, then the process of taking away her mechanical breath. The machine that had accompanied her at every moment, the one she had jokingly called her “mechanical, beeping boyfriend,” finally fell silent.

Misty said: “I can’t see the light yet.”

And then she started to let go.

“I’m going to go all the way this time, mom,” she said. “I want to go.”

She took her last breath at 8:26 p.m. Tuesday.

Cheryl said she felt Misty around them all for a moment, wild energy sparking above them. And then she was gone.

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